Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Too busy at work. Besides, she never asked me.” Ruth snorted. “I can see why now.”

“Why?”

“It said in the paper that her father’s a chief constable and her mother’s a solicitor. They don’t sound exactly the sort of people she’d want to introduce someone like me to.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Banks. “You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself.”

Ruth flushed. “I know what I am.”

“Do you know Emily’s mother at all? Rosalind?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Just wondering.”

“Like I said, she’d hardly take me home to meet her mum and dad.”

“I suppose not. So you never spoke with her?”

“She answered the phone a couple of times when I called.”

“So the two of you have spoken?”

“Only to say hello, like, and ask for Emily.”

“Rosalind didn’t ask you any questions?”

“No. Just my name, that’s all.”

“And you told her?”

“Why wouldn’t I? What is this? Are you trying to make out her mother killed her now?”

“I hardly think so. Just trying to get things clear, that’s all. Have you seen anything of Craig?”

Ruth made herself more comfortable in the armchair, sitting with her legs curled under. “As a matter of fact, he phoned me after he heard about Emily on the news yesterday morning. We had lunch together. He had to come into town.”

“What for? To pay a call at GlamourPuss?”

“How would I know? He didn’t say.”

“How did he seem?”

“Fine, I guess. I mean, we were both upset. Emily breezed in and out of both our lives. But if you’ve met her, then you’d know she certainly leaves an impression. The thought of somebody doing that to her… it’s too much to bear. You are certain it wasn’t just an accident, aren’t you? An overdose?”

“We’re certain.”

“Like I said, we were… you know, we couldn’t believe it. What about her father?”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he might have done it? I mean, she used to go on about how horrible he was, and if anyone can get hold of drugs and poisons, it’s the police.”

“Remember, he’s the one who wanted her back.”

“Yes,” said Ruth, leaning forward and lowering her voice to a whisper. “You told me that. But why did he want her back? Have you ever thought about that?”

Though it was Saturday, there was no time off for Eastvale CID that weekend. It would cost a fortune in overtime, but ACC McLaughlin and Superintendent Gristhorpe would hardly hesitate to approve the budget; there would be no stinting on this case. If Annie hadn’t seen the body for herself, she might have felt a little uncomfortable about the favoritism of it all, but having seen it, she knew that even if the victim had been a pox-ridden whore she would have been working on the case today, and working for nothing if she had to.

And Banks, the SIO, was down in London. Which left Annie in charge. She understood that he had to go and follow the leads he already knew about, but it left her with an unbearably heavy load, especially after so little sleep, and she couldn’t help but still feel irritated with him. After their little talk the previous day, she had softened toward him, but she still felt that he was holding something back. She didn’t know why or what it was about – something to do with Emily’s sojourn in London, she suspected – but it gave her the feeling that he knew something she didn’t. And she didn’t like that.

Already that morning she had called in at the incident room and found it the usual hive of activity. Winsome was sitting at the computer looking flustered as the pile of green sheets for entry into HOLMES rose quickly beside her, and Gavin Rickerd looked as if he had found his true calling in life making sure every scrap of information was neatly logged and numbered. He also looked as if he hadn’t slept since the murder.

After that, Annie had organized the investigation into Emily’s whereabouts between three and seven. She had ordered the posters the previous day and they were waiting when she got in. Banks had given her the photo he wanted used, and Annie thought it made Emily look a bit slutty. He said that was how people would remember her, and there was no point asking her parents for the sort of sanitized school photo or studio portrait they were likely to have. He also insisted that her description stressed that she looked older than her sixteen years.

The photo came above the question, “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?” and that in turn was followed by the description, the hours they were interested in, and a telephone number to contact. She had sent out half a dozen uniformed officers to fix them to hoardings and telegraph poles along all the main streets and in as many shop windows as they could manage. After that, the officers were engaged in conducting a house-to-house in central Eastvale and the area around the Black Bull. Despite the stolen driving license, Emily didn’t drive or have access to a car, as far as anyone knew, so the odds were that she had stayed in town. She could have taken a bus or a train, of course, so both stations were being thoroughly covered. There was every chance that a bus driver, fellow passenger, or ticket vendor would remember her if she had traveled anywhere in the missing four hours.

Annie herself was set to go on the evening news program, she remembered, with a little twinge of fear. She didn’t like television, wasn’t comfortable with it at all, the way that, no matter how serious and public-spirited your appearance was, you knew you were only there to make the presenter look good. But that was one little prejudice she would have to swallow if she was to get the appeal for information across.

It was close to lunchtime, Annie’s first real chance that day to sit down at her own desk and do a bit of detective work, with Kevin Templeton making phone calls in the background. Though it was a long shot, she thought she should check and see if there were any other crimes with similar MOs, using cocaine laced with strychnine as a murder weapon. The PHOENIX system, set up by the National Criminal Records Office, Offered her nothing. But then there was every chance this killer hadn’t ever been convicted.

CATCHEM offered a few more options. Essentially, you could enter the victim details, stressing the salient features of the crime, and the system presented you with a potential scale of probability in several categories. After a little tinkering, Annie discovered that it was not necessarily likely that Emily knew her killer and that the killer might well be someone who felt slighted by society and had sadistic tendencies.

So much for computers.

She was just about to go to lunch when DS Hatchley came in. Annie was one of the few women in Eastvale Divisional Headquarters, or Western Divisional Headquarters, as it was now officially known, who didn’t particularly mind Sergeant Hatchley. She thought he was all show, all Yorkshire bluff. She knew he wasn’t soft underneath it all – Hatchley could be a hard man – but she didn’t think he was as daft as he painted himself, either, or as prejudiced as he pretended to be. Some men, she had come to realize over the years, act the way they think they’re supposed to act, especially in institutions such as the police and armed forces, while inside they might be desperate to be someone different, to be what they really feel they are. But they deny it. It was a kind of protective coloration. Hatchley was no pussycat, but she thought he had a depth of understanding and sympathy that he didn’t know quite what to do with. Marriage and fatherhood, too, had knocked off a few of the rough edges, or so she had heard.